Course Project
Diagnostic Paper On GameStop, Inc.
Keller Graduate School Of Management

1. Executive Summary

GameStop Corporation is the world’s largest software, and accessories retailers in the world. GameStop, formally known as Babbage’s was a small retailer that started in Dallas, Texas. Babbage’s brought out a small electronic retailer called Software Etc., a deal in which Leonard Riggio, created Babbage’s Etc. LLC. This began a series of mergers. Babbage’s Etc. was sold to a well known company called Barnes & Noble in 1999. Next was a merger with Funcoland, Inc., which was also purchased by Barnes & Noble in June of 2000. Babbage’s Etc. became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Funcoland. Funcoland changed their name to GameStop by the end of 2000. I was a sales associated before the merger with GameStop, and eventually was promoted to General Sales Manager, which lead me to run 4 different stores during this transition, because a few of the old managers were let go during the mergers. I will focus my research on the merger and how it affected the employees of the companies that were taking over by GameStop.

2. Literature Review

* My observation of Babbage’s was there were no benefits for full-time employees, no incentives if the employees sold beyond the company’s expectations, long work hours for non-management employees, and low morale. * During the merger into GameStop there was a lot of resistance from employees all over the country. No one was certain of the changes that were about to happen. Would it be better, or would things be worst. Employees wondering if the changes would include better work hours, benefits, and incentives. All of these concerns were addressed at a worldwide company meeting, back in July of 2000. * The owner, and CEO of the company (GameStop) acknowledged that there were going to be difficult at first, but he stated that there were going to be an organizational transformation that would include, providing all employees with benefits, incentives to create more sells, and flexible hours for all employees.

3. Change Management Model

My strategy for research is to conduct interviews with employees of GameStop, and former employees of Babbage’s Etc., EB (Electronic Boutiques) Games, and GameStop. I also have four reference books, and I will research journals that will support the theory of the change. I will also give the person that I interview a short survey that will consist of 5 questions about their experiences with the companies during the mergers. I will collect the data, and provide the results at the end of my project.
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The goal is to recognize the difficulties of the transition of the companies, and provide the proper solution that the company should have done to ensure that everyone, not only the employees, but the customers experience a positive experience during the mergers of the many companies that led up to GameStop Corporation.

4. Discussion and Conclusion

5. References

I have chosen these reference books because of the useful information, and they gave me insight on how to deal with organizational change. It also explains what the role of a manager, and how to help your employees deal with organizational changes. In the project you will see inserts of the various authors that will support the theory of organizational changes, both bad, and good.

Barnes, B. K. (2000). A Guide for Making Things Happen at Work, at Home, and in Your Community. Barnes & Conti Associates, Inc.
Block, P. (1987). The Empowered Manager. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Goffee, R. &. (2006). Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? Boston: Havard Business School.
Kotter, J. (1990). What Leaders Really Do. Havard Business Review , 103. 6. Scholarly Sources

I am using EBSCO host to find all of my scholarly sources below are a few of the sources that I will be using in my project:

Mikulskienė, Birutė; Fiodorova, Anna. Economics & Management, 2010, p669-677, 9p, 1 Diagram, 1 Chart

Popescu, Doina I.. Metalurgia International, Nov2009 Supplement, Vol. 14, p99-102, 4p, 1 Diagram